“Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better.” Kane pushed Grant’s hand away and sluiced the flow of blood from his eyes.
“So much for your guess they were after me and that your overconfident ass was sacrosanct.”
Kane started to shake his head, then thought better of it. “I was still right. Uno wasn’t aiming at me. He was trying to silence Dos.”
Grant glanced over at the strong-arm’s bullet-smashed head. “He did more than try.”
He glanced behind him at Boon’s body, lying spread-eagled and motionless, bled almost white. A ribbon of blood, black in the fading light, had meandered several feet from his neck, gleaming dully on the ground.
Grant sighed heavily. “Can I call for backup now?”
Chapter Fourteen
The red sun of the dying workday washed the promenade with the color of old blood. People still crowded the walkway, going to the elevators to begin late shifts, coming through the entrance gate, heading to their homes.
Morales had been waiting for nearly half an hour. Following Salvo’s order, he wore a dark green, untailored bodysuit and was fiddling with the lamps in the evergreen trees, trying to look as if he knew what he was doing. He was faintly insulted that Salvo had instructed him to dress as a custodian. Sure, he was of dark olive complexion with a square, stump-legged mesomorphic physique, but in his opinion he looked nothing like a typical outlander.
He couldn’t deny that his great-grandparents had been outlanders, from one of the Western Islands, but inasmuch as his great-grandfather was an accomplished stonemason and was instrumental in erecting the Administrative Monolith, his family had been granted citizenship. Of course, that was before the entrance requirements had tightened.
So, now Morales stood in the decorative tree line and did his best to look like an outlander custodian and not a Mag Intel officer. He was annoyed that none of the passing people spared him so much as a second glance. He refused to admit that he fit the profile.
He grew more impatient, more irritated the longer he waited. Then, finally, he saw the woman. The pix he had called up from a personnel file hadn’t really done her justice.
There was no denying Brigid Baptiste’s striking appearance, and it went well with her brisk, almost manly stride.
Her blue bodysuit conformed to every curve of her tall, willowy body. Even with her hair pinned up in a constraining bun and the quaint eyeglasses perched on the bridge of her nose, Morales could understand why Kane had made a midnight visit to her apartment. Evidently Salvo did not.
Morales waited until she passed through the gate, on her way to the elevator, before he climbed out from the tree line. He walked casually along the promenade toward the apartment blocks. He had memorized the woman’s number and found her place easily. Of course, the door was unlocked.
Brigid Baptiste’s apartment was as simple and utilitarian as his own, except his was substantially smaller. He lived three levels below, so the size difference was understandable. But it was still irritating.
The curtains were drawn across the three back windows, so only a dim light filled the place. He groped his way to the bedroom, found the bedside lamp and switched it on. There was nothing out of the ordinary to see, much less the “anything” Salvo had commanded him to find. The room smelled of aromatic soap, with a faint whiff of roses.
Morales made a quick circuit of the apartment, opening and closing drawers, peeking into food canisters, even inspecting the contents of the small refrigerator in the kitchenette. The place was very clean, almost compulsively tidy. That certainly wasn’t out of the ordinary, since archivists possessed rigidly regimented personalities.
Careful not to leave anything out of place, he returned to the bedroom. On the bedside table was a framed photo, which at first he assumed was a pix of Baptiste herself. Then he realized the woman in the photograph was a bit older, but the resemblance was startling. She was beaming at the camera, with a wide, pearly smile. Morales wondered if Baptiste looked that heart-achingly beautiful whenor ifshe smiled.